Cache (Hidden)

This is one big spoiler, so don’t read this until after you’ve seen the film, and do see it, it is superb. This is my speculation as to who was responsible for the surveillance tapes. It wasn’t any of the characters in the film but rather the director Michael Haneke; he played a part in his own movie. What had happened back in 1961--the killing of the Algerian Majid’s parents and two hundred other demonstrators by the Paris police, and Majid’s subsequent expulsion from Georges’ family because of Georges’ foul deeds--was wrong. None of the characters in the drama was in a position to surface this injustice, so Haneke did it himself. And he signals what he is up to:• No one but him could have gotten the surveillance camera in the first scenes as high up in the air--at least ten feet high, towering over cars and people--and as far away from the building.• At 13:17 on my DVD there is a large shadow on the left of the screen that sure looks like a movie camera to me.• None of the characters in the film was likely to have had access to the professional level videotape used in the surveillance.• It appears Anne received a phone call from the “stalker.” All the usual suspects either had an accent or a youthful voice, and she would have noted that fact to Georges, but she didn’t. It was Haneke on the other end of the line.• The dialogue in the first encounter between Georges and Majid and the surveillance tape of it don’t match, and only Haneke could have made that happen.• The last scene in the movie, where Majid’s son and Georges’ son Pierrot spoke in front to the school steps, which led a lot of people to conclude that they were in cahoots, had to be about something other than making the surveillance tapes, because neither one of them could have done it. For that matter, their connection may have had nothing to do with anything, because those were two actors who did whatever Haneke told them to do.To end with an aside, I’m suspicious Haneke, not one of the characters in the film, was the one who tripped the horse in “The White Ribbon.”

Midday. The camera is focused on an alleyway and the apartment building adjacent to it. The screen remains fixed on this position, motionless. Pan back, and a husband and wife stare on in horror at the taped surveillance of their home from an unknown source. Who is behind these mysterious tapes, what do they mean, and what secrets might be revealed when their lives are exposed to the world? With this, Michael Haneke delivers another riveting thriller that leaves the audience guessing from beginning to end.CACHE is often criticized for its overt social and political subtext, and while these themes are often apparent, they never become the driving force of the plot. Haneke's emotionless filming only serves to alienate the viewer, drawing a line of separation between them and the characters. The audience is only invited to observe but never to interact or invest themselves in the events as they unfold, a barrier that was visited first in Michael Powell's PEEPING TOM. The camera then becomes the only character with whom the audience can relate, but in keeping with the central theme of lies and deceit, the camera lies just as much as the characters themselves. It is impossible to tell which events are unfolding in actuality on screen, and which are pre-recordings that are playing back on a taped recording.At times, CACHE also appears to be Haneke's reflection on the Italian Giallo, as it mirrors the structure and revelation of past events that was popularized by Dario Argento in the 70s. Another nod to Argento can be found in a single shocking moment of gore that closely resembles the brutal death of Jane in TENEBRE. Completely unlike the Italian mysteries, however, CACHE does not allow for any form of satisfying end, leaving the viewer with more questions than answers in its closing scenes. Just as he has done countless times before, Haneke also robs the viewer of a soundtrack to accompany the film, which builds on the sense of tension and unease that has already been established with each new package left on Georges and Anne's doorstep.While Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche each provide powerful and convincing performances, it is Michael Haneke's signature style that wins in the end. Paranoia, fear, and suspense are each measured out in equal doses, keeping audiences on the knife's edge at every turn. CACHE will not be received well by all audiences, but it stands as both a thought provoking and engaging piece of film art.-Carl ManesI Like Horror Movies

At the core, I think this movie is talking about French-Algerian tension, and more broadly about how generational conflict becomes buried in subconsciousness, which then becomes reified and has real effects in the world without consciousness having a grasp on how and why. Appropriately, the movie builds a mystery and never solves it. However, it falls prey to inciting petty detective work, almost egging you on to to skip and pause looking for clues, much like people were playing Beatles records backwards looking for clues as to Dead Paul's whereabouts. In that sense I think it loses some of its power. I watched some interviews with Haneke and he oddly seems delighted that people are completely puzzled and searching around for clues. It just seems like a loss that a story about collective generational trauma is getting obscured by petty clue-finding. I tried to find the lesson in that and I don't see it.Now for some petty detective work spoilers: Another reviewer suggested that Haneke himself broke the fourth wall and entered the movie, and he's the one filming/inventing the tapes. After a bunch of research I totally agree with this reviewer. There is a scene in Majid's apartment of which a tape later surfaces. In the scene, you can clearly see the exact spot where a camera would have to be placed to film that scene, and there is no camera there. That's because there's no continuity, these tapes are being filmed "in the beyond", i.e. on the movie set and in the editing room. Super cliché device IMO, but again to echo the other reviewer, a generous interpretation is that there is no way a normal person could find the intent and clarity to reify these memories. They have to be jolted into reality by "divine intervention" so to speak.